Dual Boot or "Git Gud"

[okkee]

Switched over to linux via Nobara a couple of weeks ago and everything's pretty alright. Except for Windows applications. They've really just been the only thorn in my side since the switch. Lutris helps with a lot of that but it's still just off for some games. The anticheat thing isn't much of a bother since I'm not really one for those sort of titles but it would be nice to play Fifa once in a while. Anyways, I was wondering whether getting another drive for Windows would be worth it or if throwing in the towel this early on is a bit of a rash decision? Should I just tough it out for a little while and just try to see what works on this end?

[Haswellx86]

1 minute ago, okkee said:

Switched over to linux via Nobara

Ah yes, I forgot about "Linux" being an operating system and Nobara being some other operating system. You mean Nobara Linux? So you switched from that to what?

 

3 minutes ago, okkee said:

Except for Windows applications. They've really just been the only thorn in my side since the switch.

Elaborate if you want us to help you in that.

 

4 minutes ago, okkee said:

Anyways, I was wondering whether getting another drive for Windows would be worth it or if throwing in the towel this early on is a bit of a rash decision? Should I just tough it out for a little while and just try to see what works on this end?

You can always dual boot on the same drive. No problem.

 

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[okkee]

1 hour ago, Haswellx86 said:

So you switched from that to what?

I guess it's not super clear but I moved from Win10 to Nobara

1 hour ago, Haswellx86 said:

Elaborate if you want us to help you in that.

It's really just a series of events. Some games just get up and running and some have some weird anomaly.  For example, I had to learn that getting a widescreen patch to work required some dll override. Or just "Restart to take effect" just not working. Also just can't get an existing game running properly for some reason.

 

1 hour ago, Haswellx86 said:

You can always dual boot on the same drive.

I've got a 240gb boot ssd and a 500gb HDD for other stuff so dual booting is really just a "get another drive thing for me" which I don't really mind since I'm due for an upgrade anyways.

[TheSuitedGiraffe]

When I made the switch over to Linux, I ran into issues with Windows messing with GRUB since Secure Boot is a requirement for Windows 11. I found it actively hostile to the GRUB boot loader and I kicked the can to running Windows and Linux side by side.

Depending on your hardware, you could also run a virtual installation of Windows, but I don't think that will allow you to use anything that requires a kernel level Anti-Cheat(I don't really play online multiplayer games outside of like Civilization) as it does a check to see if the machine is emulated or running on hardware (booo).

On another note, I have found very few games that Steam isn't able to run via Proton. I even have gotten MS Flight Simulator(2020) running with almost no problems. Lutris has been useful for some other random(some mad lad got a Sims 2 installer working for Linux) type of things. I have found using the community made installers and scripts to be very helpful at least for getting started (mileage may vary, and keep in mind public scripts can have bad actors)

I've mostly just been finding Linux native solutions to Windows only applications or messing around with compatibility layers. I refuse to use the Adobe suite, and the only other program I haven't found a solution for is Rhinoceros 6.

 

3 minutes ago, okkee said:

For example, I had to learn that getting a widescreen patch to work required some dll override. Or just "Restart to take effect" just not working. Also just can't get an existing game running properly for some reason.

I would check WineDB, ProtonDB, and the Lutris forums to see if anyone else has had those problems as there could be a fix/workaround.

Also if you're trying to get a game that was installed under Windows running under Linux, that could also be part of the problem because it might be missing file paths or doesn't have the rights to edit/manage files in the structure. but that's mostly speculation.
 

[AndrewAsd]

18 minutes ago, TheSuitedGiraffe said:

When I made the switch over to Linux, I ran into issues with Windows messing with GRUB since Secure Boot is a requirement for Windows 11. I found it actively hostile to the GRUB boot loader and I kicked the can to running Windows and Linux side by side.

I haven't had issues with Ubuntu and Windows 11 on my thinkpad. Enroll some keys into the bios and good to go.

[Potatoes__]

Same here, Kubuntu side by side with Win11 on the same drive, no idea about secure boot being obligatory. Guess I just disabled it at some point and never thought about it again.

 

Disregard the elitists - if you *need* some win apps or games to run and you cant figure out how to run them on Linux yet just dualboot and run them in native environment when you need them. Take your time, when you have the capacity and headspace you'll figure out how to run or substitute them in Linux and be good to go. Having a safe option to temporarily fall back to when you are overwhelmed by the new stuff is better than just burning out when the novelty wears and going back to windows full time. Microsoft and Windows blow alright and strategically I hope they lose a large chunk of normie market share to linux distros, but you can't expect people (yourself included) to just ditch it overnight unless to brag about in online.

 

One possible thing to note - if you install windows *after* Nobara it may nuke the grub bootloader and will only boot to windows until you reinstall grub. Not sure if it still stands nowadays but I had this situation some years ago on older OS versions.

[Beskar]

I have been dual booting Windows 11 and Fedora for a few years now without too many issues (knock on wood). I've also dual booted with EndevourOS without too much hassle as well. As it's been mentioned, be aware that Windows can sometime override the GRUB boot loader which can be frustrating. I've been dual booting with 2 separate drives, one for Windows and one for Fedora. I think this is the ideal method if it is possible as it does reduce the chance of Windows overriding GRUB (not impossible). However, many people have been dual booting with a single drive with great success.

 

That being said, if you need certain Window's programs this is probably your best option if you want to continue to use Linux as your primary OS.  Depending on the program there may be other alternatives (keyword alternative) on Linux that you can look into. Be aware they may not be a 1 to 1 replacement. For example, Gimp is an alternative to Adobe Photoshop, but it is NOT a replacement.

 

Just some things to consider.

[maplepants]

I was in your place about 3 months ago. I installed Bazzite on one drive and have left Windows installed on its drive. There's been no downside for me, and I only booted into Windows once to play Titantfall 2. But now I just play Titanfall 2 on my Steam Deck and that's working.

 

If you really need Windows apps then buy a spare drive for Windows, and use Linux for the stuff that works well in Linux. The OS is just a tool, it's not a bad thing to try and make sure you've always got the right tool for the job.

[NoLeafClover]

On 1/22/2025 at 2:02 PM, TheSuitedGiraffe said:

Secure Boot is a requirement for Windows 11

Secure Boot is most certainly not a requirement for Windows 11, though some anti-cheat applications might complain. Even if the installer requires it, and I'm not sure it does, you can switch it off later and Windows won't care at all.

 

Ubuntu tends to work with Secure Boot out of the box because its (Canonical's) key has been signed by Microsoft, and Microsoft's Secure Boot keys come bundled with most BIOS releases. Fedora (Red Hat) has a similar arrangement, so it works out of the box too. Got to love Microsoft's monopolistic overreach, right?

 

In any case, if you must run with SB enabled and not use one of the aforementioned distros, all of the issues can be easily resolved with the "shim" package and enrolling your own signing key with "mokutil", an expansion to what AndrewAsd mentioned above.

 

On 1/22/2025 at 10:27 PM, Beskar said:

be aware that Windows can sometime override the GRUB boot loader

On a modern system, i.e. GPT partitioned drive with EFI boot - which is the default these days on a freshly formatted drive, Windows doesn't overwrite GRUB, unlike in the olden MBR days. What it does is it reorders the boot order so that its loader is now first. This can be easily corrected from the BIOS by manually changing the boot order. Some BIOSes have a setting that locks the boot order outside of entering the BIOS set up at boot - unfortunately not very many, but it tends to make the problem disappear completely.

 

What Windows can do, however, is if there isn't a recovery partition on the drive it may unilaterally decide, without any confirmation or user intervention, to shrink the C: partition by ~900MB and slap its recovery bullshit as a new partition. While harmless, as far as data is concerned, this effectively changes the partition numbering and, if your distro configures GRUB to rely on the partition number instead of the PARTUUID, could render your Linux installation unbootable without additional intervention. Usually happens during Windows update. Absolutely shocking how anyone with any sense allowed this behaviour to exist - and it's not new, Windows 10 does the same. Then again, MS are so far up their own rear it shouldn't be surprising.

 

For this reason alone, I too would recommend a separate drive. But if you must, there shouldn't be significant issues for dual-booting on the same drive.

 

[Beskar]

On 1/24/2025 at 2:03 PM, NoLeafClover said:

On a modern system, i.e. GPT partitioned drive with EFI boot - which is the default these days on a freshly formatted drive, Windows doesn't override GRUB, unlike in the olden MBR days. What it does is it reorders the boot order so that its loader is now first. This can be easily corrected from the BIOS by manually changing the boot order. Some BIOSes have a setting that locks the boot order outside of entering the BIOS set up at boot - unfortunately not very many, but it tends to make the problem disappear completely.

 

What Windows can do, however, is if there isn't a recovery partition on the drive it may unilaterally decide, without any confirmation or user intervention, to shrink the C: partition by ~900MB and slap its recovery bullshit as a new partition. While harmless, as far as data is concerned, this effectively changes the partition numbering and, if your distro configures GRUB to rely on the partition number instead of the PARTUUID, could render your Linux installation unbootable without additional intervention. Usually happens during Windows update. Absolutely shocking how anyone with any sense allowed this behaviour to exist - and it's not new, Windows 10 does the same. Then again, MS are so far up their own rear it shouldn't be surprising.

 

For this reason alone, I too would recommend a separate drive. But if you must, there shouldn't be significant issues for dual-booting on the same drive.

 

Thanks for the clarification!

 

It does make sense that by today's standards it should be a lot better. However, in typical MS fashion they just let Windows do whatever it wants at times. Often times I wonder if it's something  they don't realize, or is it just plain intentional? (probably the latter, but I'm biased ).

[MC Morrado]

I don't typically dual boot since I mainly use Linux instead of Windows. On my gaming PC: I have Windows and Linux Mint installed on different SSD's because I don't want the possibility of a Windows update fucking something up. It's like how you's want macaroni and cheese in a separate bowl instead of touching your green beans.

 

My personal daily driver laptop is a MacBook because I only use Windows when I'm basically forced to, weather it be for gaming or for school or work-related stuff that's not on my own computers.